


Might we not be happy?

by Graziana



Category: Gentleman Jack (TV)
Genre: (Almost), Adorable Ann(e)s, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Compliant, F/F, Fluff, Meant To Be, One Shot, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Very Normal Historically Accurate Soulmate Name Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 20:48:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19070389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Graziana/pseuds/Graziana
Summary: Thoughts of cousins and potential other Listers slip from her mind like so much cream from the fine china jug on the breakfast table.A genuine smile - small, but there - graces her face for the first time in months.





	Might we not be happy?

 

Ann Walker does the unthinkable. She shuffles nervously under the gaze of Mrs Priestley. It’s tantamount to admitting guilt, though what exactly her wrongdoing is is hard to pinpoint. She wonders perhaps whether she is mistaking grief for guilt, or vice versa. The world is rather confusing of late. Both of her parents gone all of a sudden, and her sister thinking that then was quite the appropriate time announce her impending nuptials and subsequent departure to the highlands. 

Mrs. Priestley tuts quietly, and Ann wonders what she might have done to warrant this outward display of disapproval.

“Oh poor girl.” Finally Mrs Priestley breaks the conversational lull, and Ann is momentarily surprised. “Are you holding together quite well?”

“Oh, um. Yes, thank you.” They are standing lightly near the large windows in the library of Crow Nest. There is, in the room with them and out in the drawing room, the best part of half of the notable people of Halifax and the surrounding area. Rawsons run amok, though Ann would never dare to make such an observation aloud. 

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Priestley, but have you seen my sister?” Ann asks. She often feels ill-prepared for most social situations, but today feels particularly tedious. 

“Why yes, of course dear. She was talking with the younger Miss Rawson, near the east windows in the drawing room.” 

It offers a glimmer of freedom from... _ this.  _

“Would you excuse me then?” Ann pleads. She had stood quietly with the older woman for a while, the conversation had been stilted rather unsurprisingly. She scratches at the inner crease of elbow, something itches underneath the taffeta. 

“Not at all, dear. Do go find your sister.” 

She looks for Elizabeth, peripherally aware of Mrs Priestley as she begins to put distance between them but oddly uncaring of her less than polite behaviour at that moment. She sets the teacup back in its saucer, and places it on a window ledge as she passes. One of the servants would pick it up later.  

She thinks that she might try to locate her sister with Miss Rawson, but the damned itch on her arm would not abate and she found it terribly distracting. 

Before entering the drawing room she makes a decision. She scurries up to her bedroom, all but slamming the door behind her. 

Frantically, she frees herself of the fabric and then she sees what has caused her so much consternation. In dark twisting ink the name  _ Lister  _ appears on the inside of her left elbow.

_ Curses.  _ She thinks. Now is really not an appropriate time for this. Her sister had demanded that they host this almost-wake. And here Ann was, hiding away, scratching furiously at the name of her soulmate etched across the sensitive skin of her inner arm. 

_ Lister -  _ the name promised and taunted at once. Ann hadn’t wanted to marry, and so when her skin had remained clear and blank on her fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth birthday. And now at a mere nineteen the word had the audacity to simply  _ appear.  _

Ann could feel an overwhelming breath of panic start to ripple upwards through her body.  _ Tea,  _ she needed tea and her sister. All else could come second. 

The drawing room is a quiet sort of loud, all hushed tones and polite teacups being replaced on their saucers. 

Her sister is in one corner, with Miss Rawson on one side, and a curious looking woman on the other. 

She is tall and dark in hair and eyes, and seems to hold the conversation in the palm of her hand. 

“Ann!” Elizabeth exclaims, “Do come over here and meet Miss Lister, of the Listers of Shibden Hall.” 

The jolt of hearing the name so casually is quite a lot to handle, though Ann feels that she manages admirably. Offering a small smile and joining their little group, she ruffles and smoothes at the black taffeta as she settles into the gap between her sister and Miss Rawson. 

“We were just discussing the possibility of taking a turn in the garden, Miss Lister here insists that we must be further educated on the architectural history of Crow Nest and the best vantage point is from the exterior, is that correct?” Miss Rawson looks for confirmation from Miss Lister. 

“Indeed, we can hardly appreciate the crow-stepped gables from in here now, can we?” Miss Lister asks with some sort of humour, though Ann struggles to understand the source of any amusement. 

“Miss Lister, do forgive my manners, this is my sister, Miss Ann Walker. I don’t believe the two of you have been properly introduced yet?” 

“We have not. Thank you for rectifying that situation, Miss Walker.” The comment is directed to her sister, and then Miss Lister redirected her gaze. “Miss Walker, a pleasure to meet you. A shame it is not in cheerier circumstances, my condolences are with your family.” Miss Lister sticks her hand out forcefully, a handshake comes out with uncertainty. 

“Thank you, Miss Lister. I’m afraid that I find I am not terribly sociable of late, I’m poor company,  to be perfectly blunt. Though a turn around the grounds might be just the tonic.”

“Well then, we shouldn’t delay another moment. Miss Rawson and Miss Walker lead the way.” 

*

It is summer; a warm, clear day in June, and Ann Walker is nineteen. Her sister and Miss Rawson make their way towards the path that circles the property, picking down the steps that cut through the decorative rockery. Ann and Miss Lister fall into step behind. Ann wonders if she might learn from Miss Lister of any male relations that the Listers had she was as yet unaware of. Someone that might shed light on the word that itches on her skin.  

A hand touches her elbow lightly as if to guide her down the steps, and then the hand releases her. She feels the ghost of support that the hand leaves an impression of through many layers.

“It’s such a pleasure to meet your sister, though I have to say her company pales in comparison to yours, I hope it’s not too bold to say, Miss Walker.” 

Thoughts of cousins and potential other Listers slip from her mind like so much cream from the fine china jug on the breakfast table. 

A genuine smile - small, but there - graces her face for the first time in months. 

“Please, call me Ann.”

 

* * *

There are, in the years in between - though, of course, she doesn’t know at the time that it is an _in between,_ that there was an _in_ _between,_ and perhaps, if she had known, she wouldn’t have spent so much time delaying the inevitable - offers and proposals. 

The inklings of marriage offers come occasionally and each time the name on her elbow twists and aches on her skin. 

It appears that Lister men are few and far between. And when she turns down the offers of Hamiltons and Whitbreds alike, she feels a righteousness that comes with the certainty of the name that the universe declared was hers, rather than the guilt that had plagued the countless advances that she had turned down in the years before the ink on her skin appeared.

If she thinks of Miss Lister each and every time she says no, rather than a faceless Lister Man who was yet to materialise, and whose existence she was seriously starting to doubt,  she does not examine this impulse too closely. 

 

* * *

“I think you're a little bit in love with me.” Anne whispers it, and in the words their lips seem to touch almost. It’s ten years after their first meeting. 

“I”

“Are you all right?”

“I, um”

“Have I overstepped the mark?”

“No.”

“I've offended you.”

“No.”

“I've embarrassed you.”

“No, no, no.”

“I have.”

“Would you like me to go?”

“No.” Ann declares clearly, with more certainty than she has felt in a long time. 

The name on her arm prickles with heat. This has been a decade in the making and now that they are here Ann feels like she has been  _ lying _ for years; to herself and most of all to Miss Lister. An old familiar grief-guilt comes to the surface with little welcome. 

Anne was standing and smoothing her dress down and about to leave. She was making a meal of the whole thing. 

“Anne. No.” Ann reaches up to touch Anne, gently. She means to simply make contact, not to hold her, but without any thought her hand drifts upwards and her fingers and thumb curl around Anne’s elbow. “Anne” she says again quietly, attempting to cut through the bluster. Her hand moves down Anne’s arm and then tangles with her fingers. “Come with me?” 

They end up in the garden, walking down steps that she remembers tracing the same path they had the first time. They walk in an odd quiet and she wonders if Anne finds the lack of conversation difficult or stifling. It is peculiar to hear her so silent for such a long period of time. To Ann the quiet feels like calm and contentment, and the gently sloping road to the inevitable. 

Ann has some sort of destination in mind, some place further from the house, off the path, perhaps near the trees. When they reach the correct place, she will know, but until then she will continue to walk with Anne in tow. 

“Tell me more about your friend, she visited recently? You speak so often of your family, I do so enjoy to hear about other people in your life.” Ann ventures. It feels too bold, but the words slip out boundless. 

“Mariana?” Anne asks, there is an edge to her voice. “She’s someone I have been close to.” the admission sounds too large even out in the open air, and Ann starts to wish she hadn’t asked. “Though we have grown more distant in recent years, she and I do still keep each other up to date on the details of our lives, though I fail to understand why this is of any interest.” 

“-have you told her about me?” Ann asks, still walking, still not happy with their destination. 

“Have I told her about you?” Anne asks, gently surprised by the question. “No, I haven’t. Not yet.” 

“Yet?” Ann stops short at this. She is almost in reach of the shadow of the trees, and the stream of the water fountain is but a trickle in the distance. Crow Nest looks beautiful in the afternoon sun. 

“I have reason to believe that Mariana knows of you already.” 

“Oh?” This is not what Ann had expected her to say. “How so?”

_ Ten years in the making.  _

Anne waves her hand in dismissal. “It’s not important.” 

“Oh.” Ann lets go of the fingers she hadn’t released on the walk to this point.  Long, elegant fingers. She moves her hand to the fine buttons at her wrist and she picks at them with some concentration until the fabric is loose. 

Now they are away from the house she feels freer to say what she feels, but the momentum of Miss Lister’s admission in the house is gone and she doesn’t know how to proceed. 

“Miss Lister. Anne. I uhm-” She fidgets at the loose material of the sleeve that she had so carefully and purposefully unbuttoned. 

“Are you quite well, Ann?” Anne asks with that haughty arched humour that settles across her shoulders. 

“I’m quite well, yes thank you. In fact I am rather a lot better than just ‘well’” 

“Really?” Anne is curious now, the word feels laden with innuendo. 

“You see, I’ve wondered for a long time what exactly this could mean. And really, I’ve known. For the longest time I have known, since that first time we met, but I thought I must be mistaken. Now I know I was mistaken to think it could be anything else.” Ann is babbling, and rolling her sleeve up as she does so. 

For a heart-blinding moment she thinks that it might all be a mistake, a dizzying dream a decade long, and that the word that she has studied so intently morning after morning might not be there. 

_ Lister.  _ In plain black ink. 

Anne is clutching her arms. Holding her tight and steady, one hand bunching the material  covering her right arm, the other hand pressing into the skin around the name,  _ her name,  _ written on Ann’s skin. 

“Miss Walker.” she breathes, the pad of her thumb drags across the name. Ann feels the heat there again, greater now than before. 

Anne doesn’t let go of her arm, but her left hand comes up to Ann’s shoulder, neck, face. It’s so incredibly easy to lean forward and relax into the sensation. Their lips come together in an easy meeting. 

Their foreheads rest against each other, and Ann utters around breathy lips “I’m sorry, I’ve known for so long. I’m sorry.” 

Anne hushes her, instead she starts to pull at her cravat. She leans back some to allow enough space to untie the fabric completely. Ann is at a loss for words by this odd course of action. Surely she couldn’t mean to- out here? Where anyone might find them? 

But Anne simply throws the cravat to the floor, and then pulls at the top of her shirt, and the top buttons of her coat, and soon all Ann can see is Anne’s clavicle, pale and smooth and etched with a cursive ‘ _ Walker’.  _

Ann reaches out to touch her name, and listens and watches as Anne sighs quietly her eyes closing. Then she leans forward with little thought and presses her lips against the name written on Anne’s skin so clearly. She peppers the skin, marked and unmarked alike, with butterfly kisses, and eventually comes to a simple stop, resting her forehead on her bare shoulder so that she might hear, and smell and breathe in Anne. She knows that her nose is pressed against that name and it makes her unspeakably happy. 

She feels a huff of gentle breathe in her hair, and smiling lips drop a kiss onto her head. She lifts her head slightly, though not removing herself from the so far as to break contact. Anne presses another kiss, this time against her forehead. 

“I’ve waited for you for so long.” Anne whispers, and Ann feels some guilt well up. “And I’d wait that time again in a heartbeat if I knew that this,  that _ you, _  waited for me at the other side.” 

They kiss again some more, smooth lips in the shade of the trees, and Anne does not release her gentle hold on that small patch of Ann’s inner elbow for a moment. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> It had to be done, right? I couldn't not write it... *Looks at the camera like I'm on Gentleman Jack*


End file.
